Archive for Sheila Merritt
The Dead Path – Book Review
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The Dead Path
Stephen M. Irwin
Doubleday
Hardcover, 384 pages, $25.95
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
The fairy tale fear of the haunted woods is superbly invoked in The Dead Path, Stephen M. Irwin’s debut novel. The author takes the dark road to terror, creating a chiaroscuro ambiance that melds magic (black and white) with the mundane; and augury with angst. He puts the intriguing protagonist through paces that thrill and chill, all the while doing an outstanding job of characterization.
Tragedy propels Nicholas Close to return to his native Australia. While living in London, his wife dies in a bizarre accident. Soon Nicholas, always a bit psychic, is having visions. Spectres flood his consciousness: “Now, in those silent attics, garages, basements, and back rooms, behind boarded windows or under musty eaves or paused on damp cellar stairs, he watched empty-eyed men throw ropes over rafters, thin farmers ease their yellow teeth over phantom shotgun barrels, tight-jawed mothers stir rat poison into tea, young men slip hosing over invisible exhaust pipes … over and over and over.”
Once back in his hometown, however, Close’s torment escalates. The foreboding forest, the setting of the abduction and murder of a childhood friend, is claiming new victims. Nicholas starts seeing other children from the past who were killed in the surroundings. Runic symbols; mutilated animals; and a multitude of oversized phobia-inducing spiders, weave their way through the spooky narrative. As he unravels the mystery that concerns sorcery and a pagan entity, Close must embrace his own place in it. In a sense, he’s never quite out of the woods, which are ominously described: “Vines and trees wound around themselves like snakes carved of something at once frozen and moving, living and dead. Everything was green with growth or green with moss or green with rot; even the blackest shadow was a dark jade. Fallen trunks covered with dark vine lay like scuttled and rotting submarines at the bottom of a dim, glaucous sea.” The verdant, lush growth is depicted as threatening; rather than being inviting and delightful in its profuseness.
Author Irwin is unsparing in conveying despair. He cuts to the core of forlornness. For the apparitions: “Fear and confusion. That was all Nicholas ever saw in their eyes. Terror, bafflement a glum desire to be done with. Never enlightenment. Never portents of heaven or signs of the divine. And they were everywhere. There was no escape, no refuge, no place without ghosts.” For Nicholas and the others who feel emotionally impotent and manipulated, a psychological toll is taken. There is a pervasive sense of disheartenment; a profound inadequacy, stemming from squaring off with the supernatural. This is reflected in a poignant passage, in which Nicholas regards his image in a mirror, and sees: “A pale man with straw-blond hair, bleary eyes, and a distracted expression. The look you saw on shoeless men in tube stations and on sparrow-fingered street-corner preachers – a face you’d give wide berth to because it seemed one ill-aimed word away from crazy.”
Stephen M. Irwin’s The Dead Path is a brilliantly bewitching book that beguiles with finesse. Its atmosphere stirs the senses, while the colorful characters are spellbinding. Some are, literally, spellbinders.
Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes – Book Review
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Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever
Joe Kane
Citadel
Trade Paper, 316 pages, $16.95
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
“We are in a typical rural cemetery, conceivably adjacent to a small church … although a church is felt rather than confirmed. The stones range from small identifying slates to monuments of careful design … an occasional Franciscan Crucifix, or a carved image of a defending angel. Over a hundred years of death indicated in stones syllabic with their year and the status of the families they represent.” Poetic? Yes. Atmospheric? Definitely. Foreboding? Not quite yet, but soon. The passage comes from John Russo’s screenplay of Night of the Living Dead, the iconic film in which lyrical and creepy script descriptions translated into shocking and unforgettable visuals. The screenplay is only one example of the cornucopia of carnage delights in Joe Kane’s Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever. Included in this insightful, information-packed book are such topics as: Shooting the Dead (a peek at the filming process) and Casting a Cult Classic. The volume is filled with details and anecdotes; reviews of George Romero’s works; dissections of rip-offs and homages. It is a Halloween treat for movie mavens and fervent fans of horror.
The book deals predominantly with Night of the Living Dead (1968) and its sequels and remakes; authorized and unauthorized. It also, however, exhaustively examines zombie films in general: Looking at both the historical precursors of Romero’s ground breaking movie, and its subsequent cinematic impact on the subgenre. In sections labeled Zombie Movie Milestones, the author interviews Peter Jackson (Dead Alive), documentary film maker Roy Frumkes (Document of the Dead), and Danny Boyle (28 Days Later) about the influence of Romero’s undead oeuvre. Jackson provides an amusing riposte to Kane’s question, “How would you like audiences to regard Dead Alive?” The response: “Dawn of the Dead I think of as the zombies in the shopping mall. And Re-Animator is the zombies in the medical laboratory. And Evil Dead is obviously the zombies in the cabin. I hope people think of Dead Alive as the one with the guy with the zombie mother in the 1950s.” A reply of Boyle’s prompts a “Hello, remember Janet Leigh in Psycho?” reaction: “Because as soon as you put a star in a film, there’s kind of an agenda where you know they’re gonna survive basically and they’re gonna be the story.” Included in Zombie Movie Milestones is an excellent look back at Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator, with some pithy quotes from actor Jeffrey Combs.
Literary allusions/mash-ups and sociology mix with zombies like gin and tonic; at least for pop culture analysts. Kane suggests that in current fiction “We’re still waiting for Of Mice and Men-Eating Zombies wherein George is forced to shoot Lenny in the head after the latter is bitten by rabid rabbits and comes back as a … zombie! To say nothing of The Old Man and the Z.” He also espouses the theory that “Even more than casual Fridays, zombies may be our contemporary corporate-driven consumerist culture’s biggest safety valve: You can pretend to be one and stand up for your zombie rights, or you can hunt them down and kill them sans a shred of conscience.”
Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever contains the right combination of reverence and humor. Author Kane marries wit with research and looks at the cultural ramifications of an innovative genre classic. As stated in the Wes Craven’s foreword, “It was something hybrid that mixed terror and laughter and social comment into one heady, totally unpredictable witches’ brew of entertainment unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.” Joe Kane takes that thesis statement and runs with it full tilt. He captures the awe; the thrill; the freshness; of a film that ultimately transformed horror cinema.
Wings Over Manhattan – Book Review
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Wings Over Manhattan
Don D’Ammassa
Bad Moon Books
Trade Paper, 55 pages, $15.00
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
Prohibition: A time of speakeasy clubs, gangsters, flappers, Japanese demons – Japanese demons? In Wings Over Manhattan, author Don D’Ammassa whimsically incorporates creatures from Asian folklore into The Roaring ’20s. What starts out as a private eye narrative moves quickly (this is a very short book) to the universe of the occult. A demonic dalliance propels sleuthing to the realm of the supernatural. D’Ammassa’s prose is crisp and evocative of the period. He’s adept handling the requisites of the hardboiled detective yarn: Attractive dames, the sardonic P.I., gun happy thugs. Tossing in some fearsome winged beasties into the mix is at once audacious and amusing.
Fallon, the story’s sleuth, is thus summed up by another character: “Private dick. Not a classy one either.” Fallon falls in with unsavory company while keeping watch over the lovely Selina Rose. Selina’s sister has vanished. Papa Rose is worried about his daughter at hand, and so he should be. She’s determined to locate sis, and those involved with the sibling’s disappearance are more than willing to assist her in the search. Of course, these nefarious nasties have a sinister scenario concocted.
While predictable in outcome, Wings Over Manhattan is an enjoyable romp: The villains are vintage; the dialogue a send-up of genre expectations. Not frightening; not horrific; not edge-of-the-seat suspense; the tale is fun and well told. Don D’Ammassa enjoys his characters and the era he covers. The reader will, too.
The Creature’s Curse – Book Review
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The Creature’s Curse
Paul Braus
River East Press
Trade Paper, 212 pages, $9.99
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
“Never judge a book by its cover.” The Creature’s Curse has a lurid cover: An outstretched hand with long fingernails reaching toward the viewer; a menacing looking house looms in the background. Does the novel indeed reflect what the illustration overtly conveys? Some of the time, yes. The narrative is laden with scenes of in-the-face-violence, but includes sequences of subdued psychological insight. There’s a Jekyll and Hyde dynamic in author Paul Braus’s prose. In this tale of witchcraft’s power and ensuing corruption, the writer mostly succeeds in having it both ways.
Love turns sour for Abigail Merriweather and Eldon Bailey. She exhibits odd behavior during sexual intimacy, but he thinks that a psychiatrist and medication will cure Abby’s aberration. Unfortunately, in addition to obviously being somewhat delusional himself, the guy has latent anger management issues. Still, they marry and have a male child. Over the fourteen years of the kid’s life, the marital strife intensifies. Verbal abuse becomes physical, and Eldon plays around. Abby, a descendent of Salem witches, eventually feels empowered by the perks of her legacy. Using an ancestral amulet, she makes her husband impotent (no more cheating) and turns him into a zombie-ish slave.
Not content with manipulating her man, Abby also goes after her boy; he services as well as serves. Before you can say: “Holy Oedipus,” the son decides to rebel. What’s a mother to do? What’s a witch to do? Since she’s already emotionally emasculated the husband, it is fitting that she wants to physically alter the son’s maleness. There is humor and horror in the line: “I’ll make a woman of you yet, boy!”
Amidst much gore and bloodletting, are some precise and insightful passages. An example is this discerning description of a former amour of Abigail’s: “After a month together, she recognized his amazing shallowness, and that more than anything his love was reserved for his own image in the mirror. He was like a beautifully wrapped gift box – thick, colorful paper and lovely tied bow – that was mistakenly left empty at the department store.”
The Creature’s Curse is the first novel by Paul Braus, and he has set up the premise for a second. It will be interesting to find out if the follow-up book reads smoother in its transitions from monstrous ultra violence to quiet observations of human frailties.
Shock Totem: Second Issue – Book Review
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Shock Totem: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted, Second Issue
K. Allen Wood, Editor
Shock Totem Publications
Trade Paper, 82 pages, $5.99
Review by Sheila M. Merritt
Small press horror magazines require a lot of effort to produce and sustain. When Shock Totem: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted first appeared, it created a transfusion of vibrant new blood. Excellent in every way, the novice publication couldn’t help but impress. Issue Two suffers from a slight sophomore slump. In his editorial, K. Allen Wood explains that the publishing of the debut edition went rather smoothly: There was the luxury of time; enabling a gestation of almost two years. Number Two proved more problematic. Complicating the pressure to get the follow up out in a relatively timely fashion, was a dearth of quality submissions. The editor chose to wait until material worthy of the publication’s standards crossed his desk. This resulted in a delay from the projected release date. The stress and strain does show in the second outing, but the caliber of the periodical remains high.
A spirited interview with author James Newman is one of the highlights. He is at once practical: “Ya know, at one time I had this big dream of doing this for a living. I guess I still do, in a way, though now I look at this business through the eyes of a guy who’s had a little bit of experience (read: a guy who’s seen what this writing gig actually PAYS!)” Such pragmatism is shifted, however, when Newman takes a fond stand on books as opposed to e-books and Kindle: “I prefer the look, feel, and even the smell (yeah, I said it) of a real book.”
The outstanding story in the volume is “Message From Valerie Polichar.” A woman obsessed with the internet yearns for information about people who have died. She starts with Facebook searches of friends, and then goes wider, hoping to find a connection that crosses the barriers of life and death. Her relationships with the living suffer and dwindle as her drive to find answers, and bridges, to the mysteries of mortality override the mundane. This contemporary cautionary character study cuts to the core: “The important things – the things worth saying – are always said too late.” What adds to the fascinating aspect of the narrative is how its co-writers, Grá Linnaea and Sarah Dunn, crystallized the work. The opening line, “Valerie Polichar sometimes searches Facebook for people she knows are dead,” comes from an actual Facebook status message. Linnaea saw it, and threw down the gauntlet to Dunn; each would write a story based on the prompt. They combined, edited, and refined their respective pieces; and obtained the real Valerie’s permission and good wishes on the result. The anecdote is recounted in Shock Totem’s column “Howling Through the Keyhole: The Stories Behind the Stories.” It’s an eye-opening glimpse into the inspirations, thought processes, and construction of the stories included in the journal.
Shock Totem, in its second incarnation, doesn’t attain its premiere edition’s delirious and unexpected heights. Still, it is a gift to genre fans; filled with reviews of books and films, as well as the interesting interview and fine fiction. The third installment is eagerly awaited.
Let Me In – Book Review
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Let Me In
John Ajvide Lindqvist
St. Martin’s Griffin
Trade Paper, 496 pages, $15.99
Review by Sheila Merritt
Love. Horror. Connection. Repulsion. No, this isn’t about the Twilight series: far from it. Let Me In is a look at various kinds of relationships; rife with kinky complications. The novel is laden with adult situations, often seen through the eyes of young people. Author John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In, here is reprinted and retitled to coincide with the American movie adaptation. The Scandinavian film bearing the original title was a critical and popular success; the story of a lonely bullied boy who finds meaning in his life through his vampire companion. There is a definite narrative disparity between the oddly magical cinematic fairy tale and the viscerally visual text version. In the book, vague disturbing celluloid implications dissolve into startling graphic descriptions.
To read, for example, the poetic words of an obsessed pedophile: “Real love is to offer your life at the feet of another, and that’s what people today are incapable of,” could indeed be deemed romantic if said by someone other than a sexual predator. In the universe of Let Me In, however, nothing is simplistic: Fragmented families; children wiser (and more jaundiced) than their parents; physical attraction that is unique and deeply personal. A scene, in which the sanguinary and manipulative Eli is reduced to appearing in true form, depicts the creature thus: “–there was something in her, something that was … Pure horror.” Yet, when the androgynous vampire is at its most seductive, there are comparisons to spring time. Monstrosity and gender get lost in rapture.
Regarding the book/film titles: Both the earlier and the slightly altered version are invoked in the book. A female victim of Eli, paraphrases one while contemplating the limitations of intimacy: “Don’t let them in. Once they’re inside they have more potential to hurt you. Comfort yourself. You can live with the anguish as long as it only involves yourself. As long as there is no hope.” This kind of passionate pessimism/fatalism is also reflected in the song lyrics of “Let the Right One Slip In” by Morrissey, as quoted in the novel:
Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go
They cannot do
What you want them to do
John Ajvide Lindqvist unflinchingly addresses finding compatibility and comfort in unfamiliar and uncanny places. His prose is excellent, his subject matter is unusual; he defies expectations. As with the characters he creates, the readers of his novel will find themselves facing something appalling yet appealing. Being open to such feelings can be disastrous or joyful. Illusions will be shattered; being open is dangerous. It’s hard to know if, and when, to let the right one in.
Horror Library, Volume 3 – Book Review
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Horror Library, Volume 3
R. J. Cavender, Editor
Cutting Block Press
Trade Paper, 254 pages, $16.95
Review by Sheila Merritt
Tortured souls inhabit the stories in Horror Library, Volume 3. They commit violent acts; see their worlds hideously transformed; face fearsome facts; descend into madness; and reflect on mortality. But wait… there’s more: The 30 tales in the anthology explore eruptions that run the emotional gamut from the slow and sinister simmer, to the bravura boiling point. Set in locales as disparate as Tokyo and an American town with a population of 57, there is plenty of variety in the volume. The writers included do an excellent job conveying angst, anger, and antagonistic feelings.
In “Clover” by Gina Ranalli, a dying pedophile reflects on his vices; smoking and children: “Goddamn, he was a sucker for the kids. Boys, girls, didn’t matter. As long as they were young and pretty and looked up to him with those big innocent eyes, smiled at him with genuine liking. And when they laughed! Oh, God help him, when they laughed, it was all over for him.” As a janitor in a school, Danny Clover had ample opportunities to victimize those who he referred to as “vices.” The kids come back to torment him before he dies: “He did indeed have screams left inside him and the first one escaped when he felt someone kick his ankles apart, felt little hands with razor-sharp claws digging into the tender flesh of his calves as they held his legs open. And then something unbearably huge, hard and cold forced itself between his buttocks.” Brutal in her images and clarity of feeling, Ranalli creates a retroactive retribution that pulverizes with its power.
Another older man is scrutinized in “The River Child.” Based on the Japanese folklore of Kappa, a malign river entity, R. Michael Burns uses an elderly homeless person as the conveyor of the narrative. With a tenuous grasp on reality, the societal outcast watches as Kappa does what comes (super)naturally: “Not two meters away, a roughly human form lay twitching and spasming, inky liquid splashed and pooled all around. The thing that crouched over the dying man looked at first like a badly disfigured child – hands and feet splayed and webbed like the appendages of a toad, facial features scrunched and simian, absurdly punctuated by an almost duck-like bill. Hair as thick and bedraggled as kelp surrounded a circular hollow in the top of its elongated skull, a thick, phlegmy liquid sloshing around inside. A knotty, chitinous shell covered the creature’s humped back like some grotesque parody of a samurai’s armor.” The exotic setting of the work is noteworthy, but Burns primarily deserves praise for descriptions so precise and palatable.
Guilt: The crux of much anguish. Gary A. Braunbeck and Matthew Warner examine culpability with compassion and remorseful responsibility in “Under the Bridge Downtown.” A father resents his young daughter who has cerebral palsy. After she is killed when a bridge collapses on their car, he is regretfully relieved. His paternal regard for her was tempered by her unalterable, deteriorating physical state; she became an abhorrent burden to him. Going back to the scene of the accident, he wallows: “He didn’t know why he called her name. Of course he’d imagined the sound of her voice calling for him. Of course. She was nothing more than a memory-ghost now, like him – hell, they’d both been ghosts for so long, haunting what should have been happier lives. Still, he called her name again, as if it were some act of penance. It clouded in the cold air, chill as the grave, then wisped away.”
In Horror Library, Volume 3, editor R. J. Cavender collects an exceedingly admirable array of works that zeroes in on follies, frailties, and fears. What is encountered is not always human, but perhaps once was. The dynamic between cause and effect, and liability and loss, is poignantly probed.
